


Locked Intentions

by Raynidreams



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-06
Updated: 2011-11-06
Packaged: 2017-10-25 18:38:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/273494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raynidreams/pseuds/Raynidreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tag to the 'Let me out,' scene, Occupation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Locked Intentions

"I get it.  I do," she says in a low voice agreeing, because a small part of her does.  A minute portion recognizes that this is some form of love.  Some glitch in his programming or whatever the circuits are that make up his insides.  A faulty fleshy wire that has made him believe that she's the one.  His destiny.  Or something.  
  
Sibilant whispers even add,  _the poor bastard_.   
  
Because an even smaller part of her shudders at how appropriate it is that maybe a machine is the only thing that should, for she's not worthy of human love.  Hadn't been for Zak's playful and light adoration.  Lee's demanding and exiting passion.  And completely not for Sam's devoted understanding.  Love which she'd thrown back in his face every time she's frakked another in the dirty alleyways between the tents.  Their hot wetness left on her thighs as she stumbles back to her husband while he waits in darkness.   
  
So,  _yes_  she understands.  
  
Understands that this machine loves her and wants her.  She also grasps that maybe he's got no clue as to how to show her this love other than to keep her here.  That his existence is so frakked up, this is the only way he can profess the sentiment.  
  
She’s been moving while thinking these things so that she's closer to him now.  Almost as close as just a few hours ago when she'd stabbed and kept on stabbing.  Sensing as the heat seeped from him and over her skin.  Behind her back, she palms the knife she's taken as a trophy from that bout while she talks and pretends to listen; her smile as razor sharp as the weapon she holds.  
  
"Put it down Kara," he orders abruptly.  His voice showing impatience for the first time.  The strange inflection irritation gives to his syllables making her smile.  She likes it when she gets under his skin.  Even if it is only a paper-cut.   
  
At his demand, Kara tilts her head to the side with dark indifference, acting like she's won even though she's not gained any ground.  He's always on higher ground here - always two unfathomable steps ahead - just like the time before.  For no matter how many times she holds the weapon, the confusion he causes by his words seems to defeat her advance every time.  Yanking her kicking and screaming into another direction.  
  
She holds the knife up between them.  Her eyes then wheel with a similar hard amusement to the shimmer of the blade as it rotates in a silvery arch to drop with a thud.  Impact that digs deep into the carpet.  
  
His face twitches as it does.  As she gloats about nothing.  So he makes her flinch when he stands quickly and delivers to her his parting shot.  
  
Moments later, and he's left her to sleep with his corpse.  The sweet rotting perfume of it coming to clog up the insides of her nose.  She feels like retching.  Then slams down on her fear and stares the body out.  Looking at it with red-eyed, avid attention.  Fighting the quakes that run along her nerves.  Remembering how it felt to hold his life in her hands. 

Moisture and dust spoil her resolve and she can't hold on. His glassy eyes inevitably staring her out.  So she looks away.  Then her eyes flinch upwards.   
  
The doorway is open.   
  
Instinctively, she's up and on her feet jumping the carcass to pound frantically up the steps... to run slap bang into the bars.   
  
She grasps at them.   
  
She doesn't belong here.  She doesn't.  No matter what she's done, she doesn't deserve this.   
  
"Let me out!  Let me out! I don't belong here!" She howls at him or anyone that can hear.  Her panicking mind oddly wondering if any of them really do - before her thoughts finally fold over - enforced pressure causing it to almost snap.   
  
She melts down the smooth length of cold iron.

***  
  
When she next understands something, she's as cold as the gate.  She's recognizes that she's screamed out and once more balanced on her knees.  That the warmth on her limp shoulders are hands.  Strong hands that reach under her armpits to draw her lax body up like a marionette.  
  
It's only when she's up does she use her own muscles to remain standing there.  
  
"I'm sorry it has to be this way Kara.  I really am.  But you have to understand," he whispers.  
  
He uses fingertips to lift her chin as his eyes seek out hers.  They catch one another and she blinks slowly; her mind distantly aware of what he's saying.  She doesn't like to tell him that she's so frakked up that she’s already accepted that she does get it, because then she is never going to be free of him or  _his_  destiny crap.   
  
His fingers clasp around hers and he encourages her away from the door with a tug.  The inevitable momentum drawing her towards and apathetically after him as he leads her back down the steps and then seats her on the couch.  Sometime during the decent, she goes away in her head.  Just for a moment, her weaker self arguing.  Just to recover.  
  
And as her awareness retreats to safety for the night, his focuses in sharply.  He stands for a moment, not over her but at a few feet away, watching the rise and fall of her shoulders and the sickly look to her skin.  It was only the week before that she'd taken a make-shift blade to her wrist in an attempt to get away.  He knows that the intention was not resolute within her, but still, her unhappiness, her fragility, it scares him.  Scares him now more than when he'd seen how she was destroying herself slowly instead of in one go.  

 _Frak,_  he curses - unusual for him. 

He was trying to spare her a death by seeping wounds, but instead he's sliced her open from heart to sternum.   
  
Something needs to change.    
  
Veering close cautiously, in anticipation of her rousing, he carefully wraps her up in a blanket.  Her eyes remain open the whole time, staring into space.  He clasps his hand over his mouth a moment breathlessly, then rubs his jaw before standing up.  Leoben proceeds to remove the body and the blood.  He'd threatened that she was spending the night with him and it had been vindictive - something else which he felt was out of character.  He has never thought he harbored any real cruelty.  Never thought it was part of his disposition, but he's increasingly finding out that humans introduce these traits within him.  And he's learning things by the day.    
  
He'd learned to lie in the very beginning.    
  
The threat had been to worry her, to shake her, just as the door left open on purpose was.  He was becoming harder as time went on. Was able to discern more and use the ways of humans to his advantage.  Was almost able to read her like the shift of stars. 

Sometimes he hates what he was doing, but then it's for the best, he repeats as he squeezes the blood from the rag.  
  
Across from him, Leoben studies her frozen body as intently as she'd studied his.  He recognizes how soothed he feels to have her near but hates the vibrancy that this, another day, has stolen from her.   
  
Her cry ' _Let me out, I don't belong here!'_ , revolves in his head like the strands of a rope, fastened with his threat,  _'Either way, you'll be spending the night with me'_ .    
  
In the lull of her temporary quietness, he churns over this and what he’s come to understand.  This blankness is increasing within her and it's not what he wants.  That he has to do something and soon, or he’s going to lose her for good.    
  
Dropping the bucket into the sink, he'd made the threat about her being with him all night, and half meant it.  Even so, the words have played out.  It takes him until dawn to put everything back as it was.  And by then, he has a plan.


End file.
